Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy just did in her contribution, so she cannot have it both ways. I respect people's views irrespective of what they are. We are in a democracy and I always respect people’s views, particularly in a Parliament. If the Deputy does not trust me, that is fine, but maybe she will trust the clinicians, senior midwives and directors of the hospital, including Mary Brosnan, Martina Carden, Ann Calnan, Geraldine Duffy, Eimir Guinan and Rachel Irwin and Shideh Kiafir. What are they saying? They say they do respect and understand the very genuine fears expressed by many members of the public to their public representatives. They say they know from experience that the full range of maternity and women's health services are all available to women at the National Maternity Hospital. They say they are not limited by any religious ethos and will not be in the future. Future service users, they say, require and deserve state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities, and they urge all political parties in government and opposition to listen to the clinical staff delivering the service and approve this project without further delay. From earlier correspondence, we know of the desire of about 52 clinicians in Holles Street to get this hospital built and their absolute certainty that all services, including all services concerning reproductive health and the termination of pregnancy, will be provided in the hospital in the future. The clinicians are saying they will be. Not only that, the legal documents that have been published, which people should read and which include the constitution of the hospital and the operational licence that will be granted by the HSE to the new hospital, insist that they must be. There has to be, and is, legally enforceable compliance with the law of the land in terms of services that women are entitled to under the legislation and under the Constitution of the State. That is what all the negotiations to date have provided for. All of the issues have been negotiated for the last seven year in respect of the leasehold and so forth. They are not prepared to give a full freehold title for the land. We should remember this is co-location. The site is within a much larger healthcare site. The optimal value from co-location is related to the very easy access from the delivery rooms in the maternity department to the theatres in St. Vincent's for women who develop complications. Thanks be to God, complications are rare in modern maternal health but they happen. Medical expertise says we should co-locate alongside tertiary hospitals.

The vast majority of what happens within a maternity hospital is the delivery of babies and so forth. We want that to be as healthy and as decent an experience as possible in the 21st century. That is the only agenda that the Government is advancing.

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